"Mump...Mump"

When we moved to Texas, we bought a trampoline for the kids to play on. At first it was too hot and humid for them to use it, but as the weather cooled they spent more time jumping on it. At first Molly was scared of the trampoline, since the big kids would bounce her too high. But once school started, she learned that "mumping" on the trampoline was a lot of fun. At first she only used her "Power leg" to jump, so she couldn't get very high. But she loved "mumping" with us. Eventually she learned how to jump on her own. She will go out and run around the trampoline and jump for quite a while. She's really learned well and get a lot of air for such a little kid.

Here's her little footprints in the dew that settled on the trampoline one morning.

Houston Zoo

On Saturday we went to the Houston Zoo to celebrate Toby's birthday. The zoo was really nice, and since it was cloudy and October, temperatures were only in the high-70's, very nice for Houston.

Next to the zoo there was a park and a lake. You could rent paddle boats and cruise around the lake. There was also a large fountain in the center, and so the kids were posed in front of it. In this picutre, Abby is showing off what she learned at school this year.

Since we went to the zoo for Toby's birthday, we spent a lot of time at the kiddy zoo in the petting zoo. Ah, the fun of parent's birthdays. At the petting zoo, they just had goats. There was a big bucket of brushes that the kids could us to "pet" the goats. Of course each goat was surrounded by several kids wildly brushing any part of the goat that they could reach, and each clump of kids was surrounded by several parents wildly taking pictures.

Here, Thomas, Abby and Molly all brush a goat. Molly was unclear which direction she should brush the hair, but the goats are pretty patient.

Molly also found a favorite goat. She would brush the goat until she (the goat) got bored and wandered off. Molly didn't want "her" goat to get away, so she'd rest her arm on the goat's back and they'd walk around the yard until the goat chose to stop. Then Molly would start brushing again.

On this goat, Molly discovered a tail. Everytime she brushed or grabbed the tail, the goat would swish it back and forth. Molly thought it was the funniest thing ever. She could have done it for hours...but then a "mean" zoo worker (who's job was sweeping up poop) told her to stop grabbing their tails.

After the petting zoo, there was a prairie dog exhibit in the kid's zoo. Thomas and Abby and Molly climbed through a tunnel to pop up in the middle of the prairie dog habitat. Molly's a bit too short to see in this picture. I don't think she was as excited by the exhibit as the other two.

Years ago, we took Thomas to the Houston zoo. Since we called him our little monkey, when we saw this statue, we had to take a picture of him. Now, years later, we've got all three of our little monkeys in front of the statue



In getting ready for Halloween, the staff was hanging pumpkins in the trees. All three kids were told to stand under the pumpkins and make scary faces. This is what we got.